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I just have to get t a Fairfield. but ...


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I have mentioned it elsewhere but Fairfield is my maiden name and the house has a tower with a secret room just like the vicarage I grew up in so I m very fond of this house. I nearly bought one 2 decades ago but the small size put me off, now I feel different about the size and am going to get one but I have a couple of questions if anyone could answer them please

.[ I have discovered  that he house is offered as in two ways,  a) just as the house or  b) an upgraded one. I believe that the first one is without the windows and doors and the upgrade has them all and I think the extra bits are Houseworks make. My question is should I go for the upgraded one  in  the beginning  or buy the house and find the bits myself. There is a big difference in the price between the 2 . but of course I would need to find the doors and windows if I just bought the basic house. Just wondering what other folks did who have made it. Does it work out cheaper or more expensive to buy the whole lot . Or did you use something other than Houseworks bits.

This sounds a bit of a muddle but I think it gets my point across. 

Hoping someone could advise me

 

Thank you Jeannine

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The first kit does have windows and doors, they just aren't the Houseworks branded ones. Today is the last day of the Founders Day sale at miniatures.com, there's a coupon code on their site.  The upgraded model is definitely the cheapest I have seen for all the components you get, and they are already assembled which is a big plus.

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I built two Fairfields,  one of them inside out, to be halves of a Bar Harbor summer cottage and I used the windows and doors that came with the kit.  I had to make the stairs that go to the attic:

right side out interior 2.JPGinside out interior 2.JPG

I put a Foucault's Pendulum in the foyer of the half on the right.

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The windows that come with the basic kit are just punch-out open rectangles and punch-out thin, clear plastic inserts.  I think there is a little ornamentation (strips for window sills, for example, and another strip for the top).  The doors are not hinged; they are also punch-out rectangles.  You can glue them open or closed.  In the upgrade, you get Houseworks traditional inside doors, a Victorian front door and Victorian windows. They are quite a bit fancier, and the doors are all hinged with pin hinges.   You don't get different windows for the attic or tower room.  I bought the upgrade kit separately during miniatures.com's April Fools Day sale.  When you look at the pricing on the Houseworks windows and doors individually, and count the number of windows (11, I think) and doors (4 interior, 1 exterior), you can see what accounts for the price differential.  I have seen very nice houses made from the original kit, without the upgrade.  However, given how special the Fairfield will be for Jeannine, she might want to spring for the upgrade during a sale.

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Gee thank you so much, it all makes sense now, I couldn't figure out why there were no windows and doors, now I do.I think maybe I should look for different stairs too and probably railings ,,oh dear,,oh well. I will be back, I am off to check that Founders day Sale. 

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I definitely used different railings for the stairs, but be careful with the stairs themselves.  I believe the Houseworks stairs are a bit wider than the stairs that come with the Fairfield, so they need to be trimmed down to work.  (Other people who have swapped out the stairs can correct me if I'm wrong.)  Also, there are no stairs to the third floor as part of the kit.  You can either leave them out entirely, build your own or use the Houseworks stairs.  Since you'd be making your own opening for them, there is more leeway on size.

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5 hours ago, Debsrand56 said:

...The doors are not hinged; they are also punch-out rectangles.  You can glue them open or closed...

All of my interior and exterior doors are hinged with strips of chamois.  Had I already figured out how to pin-hinge them I would have done so; I did figure it out for my 1:12 farmhouse.

57 minutes ago, Debsrand56 said:

...there are no stairs to the third floor as part of the kit.  You can either leave them out entirely, build your own...

Since I built both Fairfields to be halves of a single home I did leave the stairs out of one of them and when I'm not playing with them I can push them together so that the stairs I did make connect to the second floor without having the little people stepping off into outer space.

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More great info thank you

ChapChap. I phoned the company re the founders day sale and they have extended me one more day so I could get my US shipping address pick up box sorted out. I have done that now so I can have stuff shipped to the US address which is quicker and cheaper. I just have to drive over the line to get it. Thank you very much for the info re the sale it saves me 20 %, not a huge amount but when added to the savings on posting it matters.

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Of course, you can always buy *different* Houseworks windows and doors if you like another style better. The Victorian ones are what come in the Upgrade Kit, but they aren't the only option! (The 20% off sale applies to everything in your cart, not just the highest priced item...)

Here are some good blog posts about the stairs:

https://halfscalefairfield.blogspot.com/2011/05/modifed-staircase.html
https://tinydistinction.blogspot.no/2014/04/a-tiny-staircase-tutorial.html

The Fairfield was the first half scale house I built. There are so many things I would do differently if I built another one, including swapping out the stairs! (Actually, that second blog uses a couple of photos of my Fairfield as examples of what not to do -- without my permission, but when I saw it I was too embarrassed to say anything about it. :()

 

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Emily, so would you not use the houseworks stairs if you built another house, the picture of making them from scratch scares me a bit  but I could probably cutdown the Houseworks one a bit ??.By the time I buy stairs and a couple of other things I am up to the level for free shipping so will try to find extra windows for the attic and tower. May I ask what else you would change..I have till tomorrow to do my order so a bit of time to think it out, What about external trims..anyone.  I really want this house to be as special as I can get it. and it will be Victorian as the vicarage I grew up in was.

 

Deborah did you change the attic and tower windows please? Would you suggest buying two sets of Houseworks stairs,so one can go in the attic or can the original kit ones be utilized in any way.

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I did not change the attic and tower windows.  I was going to change the tower windows to the Houseworks round windows, but it turns out the tower windows are oval.  I could have altered the openings by cutting and filling in as appropriate fit the round windows, but I did not. I used the original stairs from the first to the second floor (although I cut off the railings/banisters and used spindles and railings I purchased), and I built my own stairs to the third floor.  It's honestly not as hard as you might think.  Two nice places to look for external trims are Heritage Laserworks and Victorian Dollhouse Woodworks.

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Deborah thank you again I will check those sites out, and you know I never thought of ovals.Thank  goodness for this site and all the suoer folks.

Barbara, come on go for it, we could go through this together LOL

 

Oops, just checked  Heritage Laserworks is currently not producing as their laser cutter is broken, the site they don't know how long it will be.

 

Victorian Dollhouse Woodworks had everything I am looking for I think. once more I say thank you

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Sorry folks but another question. I have been looking at pictures more or less all day and I see two very different Fairfields. 1 has a lower patio only and the other has a 2nd floor one I presume coming off a bedroom, of course this is my preference as it gives a small patio up top which gives another place to decorate with something. I am presuming that the two floor one has been modified by the builder so my question is.. is that very hard to do please?

 

With your help I have been able to figure out all the doors and trims so hopefuly someone can answer the last question, and then I think I am done. I am trying to figure all this out by tomorrow.

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I modified mine.  The only things you have to do are 1) enlarge one of the window openings to fit a door (I modified the front-facing one, but in retrospect, I wish I had modified the side-facing one; someone told me the two stacked doors looked like an elevator); 2) not put on the roof pieces :); and 3) add some railing around the edge.  The door comes out of the upper hall, though, not the bedroom.

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Jeannine, the trick to modifying (bashing) what you want is to dry fit.  That way you can see where you will need to make your modifications.  I wish you lived a lot closer and I could take you through what I did with my two.

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Thank you again  both of you, Deborah I see exactly what you mean and Holly I see too what you are saying, and strangely enough just as I was reading your answers I was thinking "boy, I wish they were closer I could have them over for dinner to say thank you. " It would have to be a big BBQ though as I owe so may folks a lot of thanks.

 

I am going to order the house and the upgrade kit tomorrow morning, I know just what I want for trims etc from  Victorian Woodworks  too but I will wait till the house gets here so I can see the parts and just buy what I need.. I have altered so many dress patterns and toy patterns in my life and carved a lot of unfired porcelain that I am telling myself it can't be much worse than that. I have always been a bit out of my depth with wood , well apart from re finishing or putting a finish on  new wood., and  I just needed the encouragement to buy something knowing upfront I intend changing it,,you folks gave me that.

 

 Thank you again.

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Deborah, it is appropriate to say here.I don't do pictures. yet .. My husband was the photographer so I never bothered learning years ago  when digitals came out. I actually bought him a new camera 5 years ago at Christmas but his Alzheimers made it too hard for him to learn to use a new one  so  there it sat, brand new still in the box. Last night I dug it out, I managed to charge the battery,read the booklet then  took a couple of pictures with it . I then followed the instructions to put them on the computer, that is where I failed, they loaded because I looked at them but when I left the page and went back they were gone. I can put on a picture that I take from the net but have a bit of learning to do to figure out how to get the pictures from the camera to the computer and keep them there. I have it by my side as I speak, it is an Olympus digital  E PLI   and is covered with buttons and stuff!! I am working on that though, so fingers crossed I will figure it out soon.

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Another thank you to everyone for  all your help in my decision and especially to ChapChap for telling me about the sale, I have just bought the Fairfield, the upgrade kit, 2 sets of stairs and a turntable..

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DS#2 is our family's digital photographer.  I can load the photos from the chip into our laptop's "Pictures" folder and resize & edit them there to upload into my albums here.  As for bashing (oops, "modifying") your build, that is one of the joys of the thin plywood Greenleaf uses to make their kits.

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Stash,, that makes me smile,

,I used to think my fabric stash was an addiction with big blue rubber maid boxes full of it, or perhaps my mohair teddy fabric collection was a stash..or my  china paint stash,porcelain doll making supplies stash, cardmaking stash, seed  stash,petit point stash,quilt stash, etc etc etc now in the past two weeks I have acquired 7 doll houses,, I guess that counts as a stash. too. not to mention the stash of wallpapers, building parts,lighting and furniture that I have collected too. Where does it all end LOL

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38 minutes ago, Jeannine said:

Stash,, that makes me smile,

,I used to think my fabric stash was an addiction with big blue rubber maid boxes full of it, or perhaps my mohair teddy fabric collection was a stash..or my  china paint stash,porcelain doll making supplies stash, cardmaking stash, seed  stash,petit point stash,quilt stash, etc etc etc now in the past two weeks I have acquired 7 doll houses,, I guess that counts as a stash. too. not to mention the stash of wallpapers, building parts,lighting and furniture that I have collected too. Where does it all end LOL

Is it supposed to end?  Lord, I hope not!

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